Tags
buckpasser, busanda, claiborne farm, derby pedigree, inbreeding, Kentucky Derby, lassie dear, numbered account, ogden phipps, super saver, tom fool, uncommitted
For the inbred set, the pedigree of Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver offers some thrills. The classic-winning bay colt is inbred 4x5x5 to 1966 Horse of the Year Buckpasser.
A 1963 son of Horse of the Year Tom Fool out of Suburban Handicap winner Busanda (by Triple Crown winner War Admiral), Buckpasser was a marvelous racehorse, even better than his glittering pedigree. Champion of his division at 2 and 4, he was at his full powers during his overpowering 3-year-old season in 1966, although a quarter crack kept the big bay out of the Triple Crown (one of the quirks of fate that helped prolong the drought of TC winners between Citation and Secretariat).
Bred and raced by Ogden Phipps, Buckpasser won 25 of 31 starts, earning more than $1.4 million in three seasons of racing.
Retired to stud at his birthplace, Claiborne Farm, Buckpasser was a really good sire, although no replacement for Bold Ruler. Among Buckpasser’s first crop to race was champion juvenile filly Numbered Account, who is the fourth dam of the Kentucky Derby winner in the direct female line.
The other Buckpasser daughters in Super Saver’s pedigree are Lassie Dear, the second dam of Horse of the Year AP Indy (broodmare sire of the Kentucky Derby winner), and Uncommitted, the dam of Wavering Monarch, paternal grandsire of the Derby winner.
So Super Saver is inbred thrice to Buckpasser through three high-class daughters. What did you expect, a colt to throw a wrench in the works?
bloodstock in the bluegrass 
I guess the moral of the story is to breed to something, anything, to do with the Phipps family. My goodness, the blood that runs through their horses is incredible. What Phipps horse does not have a “glittering pedigree”?
Yes! Those Bradley mares, and other good stock, mated with the likes of Bold Ruler, Nasrullah, Buckpasser, Damascus, etc. … have yielded such a long line of wonderful racehorses.
And the wonderful thing is I have 3 of those horses….. Its amazing to know Phipps knew what to choose.